The Chindits – In 1944

In 1944 – The Second & Last Expedition

3rd INDIAN INFANTRY DIVISION

The Chindits were officially known as the “Special Force” or the 3rd Indian Infantry Division, but one should note that title “3rd Indian division” was purely a deceptive title to fool the Japanese. The bulk of the division contained Britons, West Africans, Gurkhas, Burmese and a few Indians in the engineering and service companies.

Virtually a double-strength division, the 3rd Indian had an unprecedented six brigades under its control– each referred to by a nickname. Each brigade had its own headquarters situated near an airfield with a headquarters column in the field.

The 70th British Division: Of the four primary reasons for the regular army’s hatred of the Chindits, the 70th Division constituted possibly the third. A veteran of the 1942 fighting for Tobruk in North Africa, the division had begun the war as the 7th Division under Maj-Gen. Richard O’ Conner. Initially held in British Palestine, the division was renumbered as the 6th Division on 3 November 1939 while in Egypt, and although its members expected to see action, none came and the division returned to Palestine. This nonchalant state of affairs continued until June 1940 when the unit returned to Egypt only to be disbanded and its men sent to other units as replacements.

Reconstituted the next year, on 17 February 1941, the division seemed set to repeat the old pattern of rear-line deployment, but then on October 10, found itself re-designated the 70th Division and transferred to the legendary sea fortress of Tobruk between 13 and 20 October — primarily to relieve the heroic 9th Australian Division which had defended the seaport all that year. In November, the division fought its way out of the fortress and linked up with the rest of the British army, an act that officially broke the Axis siege of Tobruk. But by this act, the unit also passed from being a front-line unit and into a reserve division. In March 1942, it was transferred to far-off India to meet the Japanese threat.

Initially bivouacked at Bangalore in the south for a sustained period of rest, the division became the pride of the armies in India. It was the only fully-trained, completely-equipped British division in the theatre, and when orders came that it was to be broken up to augment the Chindit Force, it generated considerable resentment at General HQ India. It did not help that few of the senior army types trusted Wingate or his eccentric nature.

The other reasons for army anger included what was perceived as a Chindit “poaching” of good men and material for their unconventional, “highly-dubious” endeavor; a general suspicion of all special operations by the straight-laced Indian-British Army leadership (the list of detractors even included the popular General William “Uncle Bill” Slim), and resentment over Wingate’s favor with Churchill, Field Marshal Wavell and other leaders in England — all of which amounted to a fear that the Chindits would overshadow regular army operations against the Japanese in Burma.

It must be mentioned that Wingate also held a bias against the conservative Indian-British Army and Indian troops, whom he termed as “second rate” — an unfair estimation considering the outstanding campaign conducted by these men in the recapture of Burma and elsewhere. Arguably, this was another source of friction for William Slim, the commander of the British 14th Indian Army, who took grave exception to Wingate’s opinions about the army.

Meantime, the 70th Division began to reorganize for the role of “long range penetration” on 6 September 1943, relinquishing its units to the 3rd Indian Division or “Special Force” (the Chindits) on October 25th. The divisional HQ ceased to function on that day and the division itself ceased to exist on November 24th.

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As I go through more of my sources, the order of battle below with its list of commanders may one day be complete. In the meantime, if you have any information that could be of importance, kindly send me a message. Updated – March 2014.

DAH Force (Lt-Col. D.C. ‘Fish’ Herring)
This force consisted on 74 men, including Herring, his second, Captain Lazum Tang and ten Kachins of the 2nd Burma Rifles, Major Kennedy of the Poona Horse, Captain Nimmo of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, a 19-strong detachment from the Royal Corps of Signals under Captain Treckman, nine Chinese of the Hong Kong volunteers, a 27-strong defense platoon from the South Stafford Regiment under Captain Railton, a demolitions expert, Sgt Cockling, an American liaison officer, Captain Sherman P. Joost and lastly, Private Williams, a medic who looked after the sick and the wounded.

BLADETL (Blain’s Detachment) Major ‘Bob’ Blain
Volunteer force of six officers and 60 men used for diversion, sabotage and reconnaissance. The group landed in special gliders which were capable of being hoisted back into the air by C-47 Dakotas equipped with snatching gear.

Events leading to Operation “Thursday”

The first Chindit expedition, Operation “Longcloth” was considered an important breakthrough in strategic thinking. It proved that a war in the densely forested jungles of Burma could be fought and won – contrary to previous notions. In fact “Longcloth” proved so impressive that the Japanese who had long given up the idea of invading India, believing that the jungles beyond the Chindwin River were impassible, began to review to plan their own invasion of India. through those same jungles.

By the end of 1943, armies on both sides of the Chindwin (a defacto border separating the Allies from the Japanese) were content to hold what they had. In contrast, American strategy had taken the offensive – and they wanted to divert as much enemy troops as possible from the Pacific and at the same time, keep China (and her airbases) free to strike at the Japanese homeland. US commanders, notably General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” attempted to achieve this by training and attempting to organize the notoriously corrupt Chinese army for offensive operations. Meantime, they hoped for a campaign from the British who they believed held a large, untapped reserve of mainly Indian manpower.

At the “Quadrant”summit conference held in Quebec in August 1943, future allied military policy was the agenda. The British were under pressure to take offensive action in the Burma theatre. Churchill, with Wingate by his side, persuaded the allied chiefs to embark on a second, larger Chindit offensive. Wingate’s plans were ambitious. His proposal was to airlift several divisions behind Japanese lines. It was a bold plan but curtailed by political squabbles, reduced to include just a single division (albeit a highly-reinforced division) to take part in what would eventually become named as Operation “Thursday.”

At the core of Wingate’s plan was “to insert himself in the guts of the enemy” with the hopeful bonus that the Japanese would not know where they he had landed. This idea had two objectives:

A) Punch deep into enemy lines.
B) Stay there until relieved.

Wingate decided to retain the heart of the British system – using morale and motivation to the fullest – the espirit de corps of the regiment as the building block of his new force. To this end, he used men mainly from General Symes’ British 70th Infantry division, known for its high levels of training and morale, with a core of units staffed by veterans from the original 77th Brigade. But this time, instead of marching into Burma and harassing the Japanese with guerrilla-type raids, the Chindits were to land by glider in jungle clearings and build fortress, complete with artillery support and forward airstrips to bring in supplies and take out the wounded. It was a dramatic new tactic that would have deep consequences.

That Wingate’s strategic thinking had evolved from mere guerrilla action to an intention to hand the Japanese a theatre-level defeat through a massive air and land offensive – and being prevented from doing so by his death – is one of the great (although controversial) stories of the war against the Japanese.

THE REGIMENTS

Source: Almost all of these badges were adapted from vintage Gallagher’s Cigarette cards, printed in the early part of the 20th Century. Digital versions can be found at the New York Public Library’s Online Collection.

To offset its unglamorous army designation, the unit was unofficially known as Merrill’s Marauders, and joined General Stilwell’s Northern Command after training with Wingate as Chindits from late 1943 to early 1944. It was called “Galahad” by Wingate and the British. The unit possessed a rich diversity of Americans, with men from cities and the country, ranging from Anglo-Saxons to Latins, from Hispanics to Native Americans. Japanese Nisei staffed the intelligence and reconnaissance platoons in good numbers, and the unit’s best sniper was a Sioux Indian.

Wiped out once in combat, 2,600 fresh, non-Chindit trained replacements were flown in from the United States on May 25 to form a new “Galahad.” Soon, these men too were fighting for their lives at the Burmese town of Myitkyina under General Stilwell’s unbending orders. The survivors were so irate that Stilwell was once lucky to return from a visit to the frontline alive. The historian C. Ogburn records one of the Marauders telling an officer: “I had him in my rifle sights. I coulda squeezed one off and no one woulda known it wasn’t a Jap that got the son of a bitch.”

The unit was disbanded on 10 August 1944, a week after the fall of Myitkyina. Only 130 men had avoided becoming casualties out of the original 2,997.

Formed under orders from U.S. Army Air Force chief, General “Hap” Marshall, this unit first came into existence as the top-secret Project 9 in 1943, specifically formed to support British long-range sorties into Burma. Later it became known as the 5318th Provisional Group in December 1943 and under this title, took part in Operation “Thursday” airlifting and supporting Wingate’s troops in Burma from March 1944. Yet, before the month was out, another change of title had occurred and the unit officially became known as the 1st Air Commando. Its motto, “Anyplace, Anytime, Anywhere” was lifted from a message sent by Wingate endorsing his support for the group and its men. Carried over in the decades after the war, this is currently the motto of U.S. Special Operations Command.

The 1st Air Commandos left the Chindits on 1 May 1944 and were disbanded in November 1945.

The column was the main unit and all operations were column based (the term column was used literally because all personnel moved through the jungle in a single file). Each battalion had two columns, one commanded usually by the battalion commander and the other by his second in command. Each column had between 400-500 men.

Each column was composed of:

One company with four or five Rifle Platoons
One or two Heavy Weapons Platoons (each with two Vickers MMGs, two 3-Inch Mortars, one Flamethrower and two anti-tank Piats)
One Commando Platoon (with demolition and booby-trap experts)
One Recce Platoon (with a British officer commanding Burma Rifles-Karen and Kachin tribesman)

Interesting original research and a good collection of photographs collected by Steve Fogden pertaining to the 1943 expedition. Well worth a visit if you wish to know more of some of the men who participated in the 1943 campaign. Web address at: http://www.chinditslongcloth1943.com/index.html (Accessed 22 December 2011)

4. The British Military History Website:A good collection of information, orders of battle and other war research compiled by Robert Palmer, with an emphasis on the Burma campaign. (Accessed 4 January 2012)

10 responses to “The Chindits – In 1944”

My father, Neville Priestley, commanded the 7th West African Field Company (81st Division, 3rd Brigade). I know he was wounded whilst clearing mines, and evacuated; but never asked the date. Is there any source from which I could ascertain this?

Sadly, there is a real paucity of information when it comes to the West Africans. I’ve certainly struggled to come across data. But a great place to start would be the National Archives. I am reasonably certain that you will find some information on your father there (considering that he was a serving British officer).

Also, this maybe a long shot, but you could examine some of the memoirs by Chindit officers who led West African units, including Major Carfrae.

My Dad, Captain Dick Stuckey as he was then in 1944, I believe, a platoon commander with 12 Nigerian, 12 Column, part of the 3rd West African Thunder Brigade though by the end of the war he had reached the rank of Colonel (as shown on my birth certificate in 1946). Tony Redding’s excellent book ‘War in the Wilderness: The Chindits in Burma 1943-1944′ contains numerous references to Dad’s recollections. In 1999, Dad himself recorded an account of his wartime service which I think started in West Africa where he learned to speak Hausa and wrote a ‘how to’ manual for young officers, moving to India with Nigerian troops then on to Burma and back to India and the end of WW2 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80017865. Sadly, Dad passed away on 17 August 2013, active and ‘still on my perch’ as he would say. He lies at rest in St Mary’s Church, Adderbury, Oxon. Over 200 people – locals, family, friends and old comrades – attended the funeral service conducted with full military honours, led by the local branch of The Royal British Legion.

Reading Akhil’s blog and other material, he mentions Major Macafrae who, as with so many others, was as familiar a name to me growing up in a military household (Dad a career soldier, Mum had been a Wren in wartime Ceylon where they were eventually reunited) as if they were old family friends.

Thanks for sharing all this information. I had somehow overlooked your father’s IWM recording and will definitely listen to it soon. Data on the West African contribution to the Chindits is often sparse. Every bit of primary source documentation helps.

Just read your blog. I am the daughter of Pat Hughes of the 12th Battalion of the Nigerian Regiment. I think your father knew mine during the Chindit Campaign. We know so little of his time there as he never spoke about it, but have been reading Tony Reddings book and trying too find out more. Do get in touch.

I wish I had known of Colonel Stuckey before he passed away, as he might well have meet my father. My own father was not a regular soldier, having been in Nigeria as a prospector/big game hunter when war broke out. Holding a pilot’s licence he tried to enlist in the air-force, but was told he was too old at 30, so being a fluent Hausa speaker joined up with the WAFC. Like most of his generation he spoke relatively little of the war, but kept his M1 carbine which had 11 nothces and one cross on the butt. The latter, he said was because he and a colleague shot the same man so shared credit. A gentle man, he also used to joke that his study desk contained enemy ears – untrue, but clearly someone he knew had indulged in the practice… After being blown up on the minefield and shot through the foot before the stretchers could reach him he was flown out to the UK, then returned to Nigeria whwere he spent the tail end of the war harassing Vichy French forces over the Northern border (regarding which there seems almost no mention atall n the Web).

After demob he took up mining in Nigeria, employing his old sergeant and a corporal who featured large in my childhood. He died in 1984.

Sure it would have made Dad’s day to compare notes … he also wanted to join the RAF but couldnt tell the difference between yellow and red so failed the test. What these guys went through and, to a man, kept their silence leaving us to guess. I’m tryingto find out where mine was based – both Enugu an Maiduguri are names that come to mind – I’ve asked my brother now living in France but once in Nigeria if he knows. Both he and Dad learned to play polo out there.

Hello my granddad was in the 1st Battalion of the Essex Regiment. We think he was known as Doug(las) Gale. We wanted to know if he trained as part of the Long Range Penetration Group. He was in India according to his service book until 8/12/43. He came home at this point. We do not know if this was due to injury or illness or something else. What we cannot work out is whether the group were actually fighting the enemy in December or just training? Can anyone help please.

Description

Akhil Kadidal is a writer. This site accommodates a personal interest in the art and events of the Twentieth Century, Modern era.

All art by author except where noted.

An Explanation

"Chindit" is an English corruption of the Burmese word "Chinthe," describing a mythical lion. The name was adopted by a legendary band of irregular British-Allied troops during the Second World War.
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Hermes is the Greek patron God of writers and travelers (and scoundrels). In his repertoire (among other things) was a winged cap and a pair of winged sandals.